How Recess was Won and Where It Got Us

In their ongoing war against everything that is awesome, The Powers That Be have claimed yet another victim. Following the calculated assassinations of Halloween, the Prom, and, most senselessly, hugging, enemies of fun have turned their eyes to the mecca of schoolchildren: Recess.

At Broadway Elementary School here, there is no more sitting around after lunch. No more goofing off with friends. No more doing nothing.

Oh my god, that sounds awful. Sitting around, goofing off, and doing nothing? You've just named the three things kids loathe doing the most. No wonder kids hate school. Those Broadway Elementary kids are sure going to love it when they grow up and have to get jobs.

Instead there is Brandi Parker, a $14-an-hour recess coach with a whistle around her neck, corralling children behind bright orange cones to play organized games. There she was the other day, breaking up a renegade game of hopscotch and overruling stragglers’ lame excuses.

A recess coach? Really? We have to structure recess now? I understand the need for breaking up a renegade game of hopscotch, but only if hopscotch is a euphemism for something you do that involves sex and crack.

They were bored. They had tired feet. They were no good at running.

“I don’t like to play,” protested Esmeilyn Almendarez, 11.

“Why do I have to go through this every day with you?” replied Ms. Parker, waving her back in line. “There’s no choice.”

It just struck me that a recess coach could quite reasonably also be called "the fun police." What the heck does she mean, "there's no choice?" Does this imply that recess has become a time where kids are forced to run drills structured around orange cones? I'm half expecting a giant TV to turn its cyclopean eye towards the poor 11-year old girl and remind her gently that FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.

Broadway Elementary brought in Ms. Parker in January out of exasperation with students who, left to their own devices, used to run into one another, squabble over balls and jump-ropes or monopolize the blacktop while exiling their classmates to the sidelines. Since she started, disciplinary referrals at recess have dropped by three-quarters, to an average of three a week. And injuries are no longer a daily occurrence.

Finally, the lawless frontier that is the schoolyard has been conquered. Nobody is more well-adjusted than those people who, when they were little, avoided learning how to interact with others via squabbling over balls. Now, they will learn that, when they grow up, there will always be some authority figure hovering over everyone and making sure that they all get to zig-zag around the orange cones of life.

“Before, I was seeing nosebleeds, busted lips, and students being a danger to themselves and others,” said Alejandro Echevarria, the principal. “Now, Coach Brandi does miracles with 20 cones and three handballs.”

Because kids without skinned knees and grass stains on their shorts are the happiest kids of all!

The school is one of a growing number across the country that are reining in recess to curb bullying and behavior problems, foster social skills and address concerns over obesity. They also hope to show children that there is good old-fashioned fun to be had without iPods and video games.

But don't they get it? Yes, there is fun to be had without video games, but not if you institutionalize it. Nothing will kill fun faster than an order to have fun.

Although many school officials and parents like the organized activity, its critics say it takes away the only time that children have to unwind.

In Wyckoff, N.J., an upper-middle-class township in Bergen County with a population of 17,000, hundreds of people signed a petition in protest after the district replaced recess in 2007 with a “midday fitness” program.

MIDDAY FITNESS? Whatthehell? Wasn't that called gym? These assholes went and replaced recess with gym and hoped no one would notice? If I was 10 years old and you told me you were replacing my one half-hour period a day I got where I could do whatever the heck I wanted and replaced it with calisthenics, I would stage a friggin revolution. I'd cut the tetherballs of the tethers, arm some kids with marbles, tell the kids with basketballs to aim for the windows, and commence an assault on the administration until they gave us recess back.

Recess has since been restored in Wyckoff’s middle school, and on alternating days in elementary schools.

ON ALTERNATING DAYS?? THAT WAS THE COMPROMISE? YOU ONLY HAVE RECESS EVERY OTHER DAY?

(Rage blackout)

Well, at least we know which days are skip days.

Dr. Romina M. Barros, an assistant clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx who was an author of a widely cited study on the benefits of recess, published last year in the journal Pediatrics, says that children still benefit most from recess when they are let alone to daydream, solve problems, use their imagination to invent their own games and “be free to do what they choose to do.”

Structured recess, Dr. Barros said, simply transplants the rules of the classroom to the playground.

“You still have to pay attention,” she said. “You still have to follow rules. You don’t have that time for your brain to relax.”

LISTEN TO THIS WOMAN.

It is not just about fun and games. At University Heights Charter School in Newark, another of New Jersey’s eight Playworks programs, students have learned to settle petty disputes, like who had the ball first or who pushed whom, not with fists but with the tried and true rock-paper-scissors.

I object. Who had the ball first is not a petty dispute. It is, in fact, a way for kids to learn about the most important foundations of our capitalist society: ownership. Possession. Incentivizing initiative for the pursuit of happiness. Remember, whoever owns the ball gets to say not only who gets to play, but also whether a game is even played at all. Because why else would you be friends with the rich kid?